Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A large wicker basket, especially:
- n. One of a pair of baskets carried on the shoulders of a person or on either side of a pack animal.
- n. A basket carried on a person's back.
- n. A basket or pack, usually one of a pair, that fastens to the rack of a bicycle and hangs over the side of one of the wheels.
- n. A framework of wire, bone, or other material formerly used to expand a woman's skirt at the hips.
- n. A skirt or an overskirt puffed out at the hips.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A bread-basket; a basket for provisions; hence, any wicker basket.
- n. One of a pair of baskets slung across the back of a beast of burden to contain a load.
- n. A basket for carrying objects on the back of a man or woman, used in mountainous countries and where the use of beasts of burden is not common.
- n. 4. An adjunct of female dress, intended to distend the drapery of the skirt at the hips. It consisted essentially of a light framework of whalebone or steel wire of suitable form, secured at the waist; it is now also made of the material of the dress, puffed and made full.
- n. A part of woman's head-dress; a stiff frame, as of wicker or wire, to maintain the head-dress in place.—6. In arch., same as corbel.
- n. A shield of twisted osiers used in the middle ages by archers, who fixed it in the ground in anupright position and stood behind it.
- n. 8. In hydraulic engineering, a basket or wickerwork gabion filled with gravel or sand, used in the construction of dikes, or to protect embankments, etc., from the erosion of water.
- n. In the inns of court, formerly, a servant who laid the cloths, set the salt-cellars, cut bread, waited on the gentlemen in term-time, blew the horn as a summons to dinner, and rang the bell; now, one of the domestics who wait in the hall of the inns at the time of dinner. Also pannier-man.
Wiktionary
- n. A large basket or bag fastened, usually in pairs, to the back of a bicycle or pack animal, or carried in pairs over the shoulders.
- n. A decorative basket for the display of flowers or fruits.
- n. One of a pair of hoops used to expand the volume of a woman's skirt to either side.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A bread basket; also, a wicker basket (used commonly in pairs) for carrying fruit or other things on a horse or an ass.
- n. A shield of basket work formerly used by archers as a shelter from the enemy's missiles.
- n. A table waiter at the Inns of Court, London.
- n. A framework of steel or whalebone, worn by women to expand their dresses; a kind of bustle.
WordNet 3.0
- n. set of small hoops used to add fullness over the hips
- n. a large basket (usually one of a pair) carried by a beast of burden or on by a person
- n. either of a pair of bags or boxes hung over the rear wheel of a vehicle (as a bicycle)
Etymologies
- Middle English panier, from Old French, from Latin pānārium, breadbasket, from pānis, bread; see pā- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Would 100l of fuel in pannier mounted jerrycans get a bike from Seattle to NYC?”
“Just the name pannier should evoke enough irony and kitsch.”
“A pannier is a more rigid container than a bag or soggie, so that it incurs less risk of poor packing and shape to the load.”
“The expedient of hiding a child in a pannier, which is afterwards filled up with eggs and chickens, and carried through a camp of hungry rebels, does not somehow appeal to the mind as quite the safest that could have been devised.”
“On each side of this his long-eared aide-de-camp, in a kind of pannier, were slung his water-jars, covered with fig-leaves to protect them from the sun.”
“One pointed to a kind of pannier of birch-bark hanging from a teepee pole, whence issued a violent scratching.”
“A boy, armed with a spear, walks at the side of the women; and two children, seated in a kind of pannier placed on the back of an ass, ride on in front.”
“I pronounced "pannier" wrong for the longest time until I had to get new ones and the guy at the bike shop had no idea what "paneers" were.”
“Also, a bike "pannier" (a single saddle bag) fell off of a bike early last Sunday as a rider traveled along Valley Road from Bloomfield Avenue, made a right onto Chestnut Street, and then made a left onto Midland Avenue.”
“Which is true, but it's a good thing they hadn't seen me come into the pub; in one hand I had my rucksack and a pannier, in the other, a helmet with a high visibility vest, lights and ankle bands all precariously balanced inside.”
The Guardian: My cycling clutter is weighing me down | Aled Thomas

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